Penguin68

My point, James, was that you were praying-in-aid the design of the Barry/ Upland junction as being a model of safety for the Underhill junction in a thread announcing an accident on that very junction. What makes you think that 'at this point' another crash won't happen for several years? That junction is much less used than Underhill (it isn't a bus route, nor is it really a 2 way through route to/ from anywhere - it's into a route leading to the South Circlar going south, but not travelling from the south heading north). And yet it managed an accident with the new layout and platforms. Granted that the building works on the corner of Underhill aren't exactly making life any easier, but nothing done to the side roads will slow down Barry traffic (indeed it could even speed it up!) And most people perceive that it is Barry road speeds (and the problems those cause when trying to get into or across the flow of traffic) which seem to precipitate accidents.

Most of the regular and permanent staff in Silvester Road are actually good and caring - but they do have problems with temporary/ relief staff - often they welcome complaints as well, as they don't like offering a poor service either and it sometimes seems the only way that action against poorly performing staff can be taken. There are also problems on occasion in the sorting office 'above' them - so that mail doesn't even get to them to be sorted and delivered in the first place. I'm afraid the Mail has always been a target for employment by petty thieves, where pickings can be (comparatively) rich and frequently, it appears, risk free. Much like dock-work in the old days of casual labour.

Dell used to do a 6.00-9.00pm slot as standard, but I think they may have stopped that. You can arrange for relatively small packages (the micro-wave might be too big) to be delivered to your local sub post office - sometimes when Royal Mail Parcels can't deliver they take stuff to sub post offices anyway and leave a note saying what they have done (the post takes it back to the sorting office).

My point was more that if the expectation is rich pickings, then street crime will continue - if the expectation was that it wasn't worth the effort (rewards outweighed by risks) then maybe it will tail off. It may be easier to change the potential victims' attitudes (they are our children after all) than to 'educate' people we don't know and don't mix with not to rob. When the status of ownership of costly gear (and its ubiquitous personal transport) is paramount, above and beyond the worry about risk of attack, then attacks will continue, moving round the borough as police attention moves round.

There have been muggings and attempted muggings on Underhill of and on for years - its traumatic when it happens to your own children (and I've gone through that trauma on a couple or more of occasions) but we need to keep perspective - I agree that stepping up patrols will have a short-term effect (it tends to move the crime to other roads - maybe the Underhill muggers have been moved on from Peckam Rye - vide other threads!) but we need to look at overall trends across the 'crime catchment' area we live in before we over-react. I suspect that the police do take muggings seriously - they certainly did when my daughter was mugged when she was 8 or 9 - but they can't be everywhere all the time; and muggers know that. It is also true that many muggers are young, and their youth protects them from onerous punishments even when they are caught. The last time my daughter was mugged for her phone in Underhill it was so old and battered that the mugger gave it back, suggesting her dad get her a better one. Maybe teenagers (when they are out at night) should have phones that are good enough for simple communication but not so attractive to thieves. When I was 16 I didn't wander around anywhere with ?100s of pounds of kit on me (probably I never had more than the cash equivalent now of no more than ?30-?40 - so about ?2-10 shillings then, and often much less).

As I have said in a post which was lounged, it would be really helpful for the orginal poster to include the date in the headline - particularly in this case where the date is key when searching for witnesses. Edited this morning (25th May) to say thanks for responding and including the date - most helpful.

There is clearly a fault on your line - it looks like you may be cross connecting, when your phone is jumpered into another line (this may be the result of work in a flexibility point - pillar or cabinet (green, road-side boxes) close to you. It is possible that the cross connection could have taken place on the exchange frame, although these faults are less common. Have you seen work going on locally withing the last few days? You should report it to BT - I doubt whether it reflects any general fault locally (although the other line you are cross-connected to will be having similar problems). If the problem is at the exchange that other line may be terminated well away from you, if at a flex point it will probably be close by. You can report on any land-line, or via a mobile.

The junction of Upland Road with Barry Road in the last 3 years had zero reported collisions and crashes. So we used that as a template for changes to the Underhill Road with Barry Road junction. So far it appears to have had zero reported crashes or collisions. - James Barber in post just above Accident on Barry Road junction with Upland Road Currently very congested 2.45pm - First post in this thread. Huh?

I am not sure what the 'other' costs quoted are - but I suspect that covers the costs of management meetings with unions, cost of letters etc. to trades-unions about cases and so on.

Many companies allow active trades-unionists (branch officials, shop stewards etc.) paid time off to pursue union activities, which may include representing or being the 'friend' of a member being disciplined. Often that is set-up as 'so much time per week/ month' although it may not all be taken. It is possible to impute the salary cost of the time being taken (and sometimes a 'hire' cost of company rooms being used for meetings), if these are allowed on-site. Sometimes the company actually charges the union a hire-fee for using company space - in which case it is union subscriptions which pay for that. This is not actual additional money going to TU activities but is the 'opportunity cost' of allowing a TU official to act for the union in company time - sometimes these are in formal meetings with management. Most of these officials are only part-time activists, their remaining time being spent on productive work, and many still contribute substantially to the service operation of their employers. Much union work is about personal cases (supporting individual members) and in aspects such as health and safety (most branches have safety reps who work with company H&S operatives to ensure safe working environments). Effective trades-unionism can be beneficial to companies where small numbers of (voluntary) officials act for large numbers of staff, who don't then themselves have to worry about these concerns but can concentrate on working. Most union work is not about major disputes, strikes or formal disagreements but about ensuring day-to-day smooth relationships between management and staff. Most union work you will never read about in the Daily Mail because it is frankly too dull and anodyne. Often unions and HR work together to curb unruly manmagement, unable or unwilling to work within either agreed processes (with unions) or in some instances the law (discrimination, sexual, racial etc. is stil commonplace within some groups of managers) Some of the money quoted above will have been 'wasted' no doubt, but most of it probably adds to the productivity of the council rather than detracting from it.

I continue to see lots of pedestrians plugged into various bits of technology who cross roads in a very dangerous way Don't worry, the muggers will get them.

I don't condone those who mug children from DC, Alleyn's and JAGS - I comment on the fact that you fish where the shoals are flocking (if you are a fisherman) - and obviously have done so for as long as the fish have been there. The point I was trying to make is that (a) this isn't something unique and recession linked and (b) it probably is no worse than it's been for a long time - this doesn't make it in any way good but it does suggest that we shoudn't be stepping up our alarms an concerns in response to a real increase in incidents. Every so often the police try to suppress this behaviour - and now would be a good time for them to start again - but the learning point is to encourage vigilence and sensible behaviour amongst the potential victims - don't wander about aimlessly with ?100s of pounds of kit dangling about your person, don't wander about drunk and vulnerable (young adults, obviously) don't take unlit and unobserved short-cuts etc. etc. Attacks in broad daylight in high passage areas are relatively unusual, apart from being aware of what's going on around you (and moving around in a bunch) there is little you can do to avoid these. However un-sensible you are, of course nobody deserves to be mugged - but some actions are more likely to make this a possibility than others. I take a Hobbesian view of life (nasty, brutish and short) rather than a Rousseau-ian (noble savages) and act accoordingly.

I don't think it's the recession - just 'fashion' - 6-7 years ago and more my daughter's teenage (male) friends in ED were being reportedly mugged for phones etc. on average every 3 months or so. (that is, each one was being mugged that frequently). Allow something for teenage hyperbole, and that's still a lot going on - and it seems to go on whatever the economic climate. It's probbaly not actually getting worse. Put 3+ fee paying schools into this sort of area and you have a god-given group of easy targets, likely to have stuff worth nicking.

Here's a possibility - the poster wondered why he hadn't been contacted, waited a bit, then thought - oh, have I given the wrong number? He said he had given his US number - maybe his error was in working out the right access code to key - which would be 00 (or +) 1 (for the US, for us in the UK it would be 44) then his mobile number with the leading 0 suppressed. If he had got that front end wrong he might not have known until someone later told him that he was giving out an ineffective number - even when you know your own number well you tend to remember it as the number as it is keyed in your home country - not someone else's - that bit you have to work out. Let's not (necessarily) think the worst here - it could still be a charming (and genuine) story.

Numbers of posters very helpfully post about recent events - often headlining them 'today' or'yesterday' or 'last night' etc. - this is immediately useful to readers at the time, but when a discussion continues it is often days afterwards when the most recent post (the only one dated by the system) appears - could posters either (a) include a date ('yesterday, 12th May') or later amend their posts to show the date. [i know some people already do this, but not everyone] Sometimes the same event is discussed in more than one thread because it is not clear that is actually is the same event. I don't think this is something we should be expecting the moderators to do for us, but it would really help me when I read something at the top of the queue that says 'yesterday' but is actually already a week old.

'black boy in a hoody' Actually the description given was "a young black guy in a blue hoody" - which is a bit less generic, and might trigger others who saw such a youth lurking (or may even have been accosted by him). Of course report to the police - but the description and the other information 'Didn't even see him coming and he snuck out between the cars' may also be helpful. The balance to be got is between posting infomation about attacks and thinking that this necessarily makes the area dangerous, or increases people's fear (as oppposed to wariness). To warn people that 'black people might mug you' or to hypothecate that a reported mugging 'might' be by a black person is to express unnecessary and unacceptable racial bias - to report 'a black person mugged me' is a simple description of an event - the easiest descriptors for us tend to be sex, age, height, colour, distinctive clothing. The description (a young black guy in a blue hoody) gives at least 4 of those, and implictly (because the poster says he is big, implying the attacker was smaller) some inkling of the 5th. I think it is entirely reasonable to warn people, I believe that muggers not infrequently choose the same haunts to mug in (and tend not to travel too far to do it) - so a warning (if accompanied by reporting this to the police) seems appropriate and helpful.

As there is (now) no current election we could assume that the school was being visited by the Prime Minister (in that office) rather than the leader of the Conservative Party. Most schools take visits by the Prime Minister as being rather good things. Obviously the Prime Minister wishes to promote and endorse the policies of his government - but if this is a celebration of success for the school (I assume it was) this reflects back on the pupils and teachers in the school in what (should be) a positive and reinforcing fashion. Raining on their parade is a somewhat curmudgeonly attitude.

Most African origin slaves were initially enslaved by fellow Africans or by Arabs - who then sold them to Europeans. Europeans very rarely directly captured African slaves (i.e. people who were free) themselves. Arabs around the Med enslaved large numbers of Europeans and Slavs for service in North Africa, Palestine and Syria, Arabia and Anatolia. If slavery is a stain, and it is, it is a stain not unique to white Europeans, and most modern slavery (and there is a lot of it) has virtually nothing to do with Europeans at all. And as I have said, the original (literary) Gollywog was created 20 years after the abolition of slavery in the US. Later productisation followed (the dolls) but they never co-existed with slavery - so no comparisons would or could have been drawn between then and ?current? black slaves. A gollywog doll is no more (or I suppose no less) a 'pet' than a teddy bear or a standard doll. Most recent (post war) genocides have been by peoples the same colour (broadly) as those they have been killing, i.e. Croatia, Rwanda, Cambodia etc. You are right that some people back-read history to be (reasonably) offended by the symbolism of the gollywog (and that term was certainly used in an insulting or dismissive manner in the past) but you are over-egging the pudding by reading into the doll every bad thing that has happened to black people (indeed any people) ever. That wasn?t its original history or intent, neither is it the way that multitudes of people who had dolls or read the stories thought about them. Edited for spelling

Why would they chose to love a pet version of their victims? - Or do you believe the dolls were bought so they could be hated? And out of interest - how many little white girls don't get bought little white dolls - do little black girls not have little black dolls (not gollywogs, of course, because of current sensibilities).

Surely if you are looking, in your universe, for a doll to love with connotations of mass murder, ethnic cleansing and brutally, barbaric slavery you would chose a white one - not one which, in your view, represents the victims of all these things?

Just to put one point to bed - the gollywog character created, as I have said earlier, in 1895, was thus created after the US emancipation of slaves - it thus did not necessarily characterise a slave, although possibly a former slave, now free. It showed a 'jolly' interpretation of an afro-american dressed in a popular entertainment costume and was probably beneficent in intent - even though actually in our minds hideously condescending and 'stereotyping'. Enid Blyton's later hijacking of the character was more malign (though possibly not intentionally racist - the linkages with actual black people were less obvious to a British than to an American eye) - popular sentiment anyway had those characters in her Toytown stories later substituted by goblins - the only non-toys in that universe, I believe. I suspect Blyton, looking for possible rogues in her stories chose the gollywog toy because it was black (a colour, long before racism, associated with wickedness because the colour of night) - not because it represented a 'real' black person. However, we cannot rule out at the very least unconscious racism in her choice (although Mr Golly was the original garage owner in the books, not an evil character). If you have a universe of toys - how do you chose the rogues from that, particularly if they have to be able to do things like drive cars (which takes snakes off the agenda - another archetype for evil). I also dimly recall that the wearing of a Robinson's 'Golly' broach took an an entirely subversive (nothing to do with racism) character - in the '60s I think, at least in popular myth.

It is worthwhile pointing out that the original gollywog character, created by the American Florence Kate Upton in 1895, although clearly what we would now see as an offensive racial stereotype, was portrayed as a broadly sympathetic character, and gollywog dolls were often very much loved and cared for by their owners. The Black and White Minstrel show, now seen as horrendous (and using much the same stereotype) was in its day loved by millions, and not seen by them as an adverse racial commentary, but as a way of embodying a (much enjoyed) style of singing. We now see why that is wrong, and unecessary, but we shouldn't read back our sensibilities to other generations. Neither portrayal created either fear or loathing of a different race, in their time, although even then they could be used by those already with that attitude to further offend. We now see stereoptying as clearly wrong, but to stereotype then wasn't necessarily to hate, or even disparage.

Savage cutting back of some types of hedging/ trees will simply kill them - some types of hedging etc. need proper pruning (to growth buds etc.) to avoid death, or at the least unnecessary die back. Overhanging branches when well above head height - i.e. of trees and tall shrubs, do not cause pedestrian problems (generally) and add to the look of a locale (after all, in roads with trees planted these 'overhang' pavements and roads without any problem, when tall enough). Cutting any overhang back to the boundary is unnecessary and may detract from the visual amenity of a road. I take delight in neighbours' front gardens (I am lucky enough to live where there are some), and this includes growth which grows over boundaries without restricting passage. Sending warning notices to householders about intrusive hedging was in the past the norm, with punitive slash-and-burn only when that warning was not heeded.

I saw a guy the spit-and-image of Karl Pilkington in DKH Sainsbury's this morning, with a small child in tow - does anyone know if the real KP has such an encumbrance, or indeed lives anywhere near London?

When people complain about the lack of recycling vim shown by the great british public - I think they forget that every council, indeed with us every street, apparently, has its own recycling rules - I used to look after my mother's house outside London, it had different boxes, different things that could be mixed together in boxes (paper and cardboard couldn't be disposed of together) - trying to remember which rules I was working to was a nightmare. Some councils recycle plastic, other's don't, and so and so on. If a single set of rules were instituted across the country we would all be clear what we should be doing, and the only issue then would be what our collection days were. Then we could get on with it. Some hope, eh? IMHO